Missions
One of the historical characteristics that distinguishes The Christian and Missionary Alliance from some other evangelical bodies in North America is our compelling concern for reaching the lost world and bringing them into maturity in Christ.
This takes place in the United States and in 96 countries around the world through our highly trained international workers (IWs) who serve via the four structures of Alliance Missions.
Gospel Access
Gospel access is the enduring vision of Alliance missionary efforts. We celebrate the overwhelming joy we share in having access to and the opportunity to know the gospel of Jesus. That overflow of joy brings forth our passion to carry His message to parts of our country and areas of our world with little or no gospel access.
Gospel access is to flow for and from all peoples, and we get to experience that through missions.
Gospel Presence
So, what does this kind of missionary work look like? How does it really happen that new people groups gain a chance to hear the gospel? Jesus put emphasis on the presence of people transformed by the gospel. Simply put, if there are no such transformed people among a group, that group needs someone to come from outside their group into their group. This is precisely what God sent Jesus to do in what we celebrate each Christmas as the Incarnation (John 1:14). Jesus sends us in this same way (John 20:21).
Jesus’ model of incarnational ministry remains our primary calling and posture. He continues to ask His Church to send those that He calls to go and live among peoples who need real, living examples and emissaries of the gospel. Our Alliance family comes together around this joyful task!
To the hard places
The world’s remaining unreached peoples have disadvantaged access to the good news of Jesus. Over 4,000 distinct people groups lacking gospel access remain in locations from which 90 percent of their population will never migrate Within each society of these unreached groups are also pockets of people with specific needs—vulnerable women and children, people with disabilities, minority groups, migrants, prisoners, and others represent groups often overlooked, though not by our God.
As Alliance people, we long to see our presence. among unreached peoples multiplied as new believers and churches are raised up to join us in reaching beyond their physical and cultural borders to the remaining hard places.
Our World In Need
International Workers (IW)
The Alliance international workers you send and support have spent years preparing to live and serve among the world’s remaining unreached peoples. They have persevered through the educational, vocational, and real-life ministry experience needed to have a meaningful, impactful presence where they’ve been sent. They have left behind people and places they hold dear to live among the lost, suffering, and overlooked they’ve been called to serve. They’ve learned difficult languages and immersed themselves in unfamiliar cultures—to preach Christ in word and deed where He is not yet known.700
workers
140+
cities
150
people groups
Structured for Engagement
aXcess proclaims the gospel and multiplies networks of faith communities among the least-reached of the world.
CAMA responds to disasters globally and partners locally to restore communities and alleviate poverty.
Envision identifies and develops missional leaders through short-term missions experiences and innovative ministry strategies.
marketplace ministries facilitates marketplace professionals who bring their expertise to a community to disciple those around them.
Alliance Strategic Themes
The presence of Alliance international workers among peoples of the world who need gospel access is the key response of our U.S. Alliance family. Our staff and teams around the world function within the three key Alliance Strategic Themes:
Meaningful, Impactful Presence
Incarnational ministry is holistic—it expresses the restorative mission of God in helpful action and in verbal witness. A meaningful presence involves healthy contributions that international workers are able to make. A key strategic foundation in Alliance Missions is seeking presence that is sustainable and that opens doors for gospel impact as naturally as possible. Alliance staff and teams around the world serve in spheres such as education, health care, relief and development, cultural exchange, business, community development, agriculture, etc.
Ultimate Objective
The gospel is not simply news to be heard and understood; it transforms lives! New believers in new places are next disciples of Jesus. The multiplication of discipled believers leads to the planting of Jesus’ Church. Seeing local churches take root and multiply in new contexts is a delicate process. Alliance Missions measures its long-term impact by the emergence of such churches. In fact, as whole networks of such churches are developed in each people group where before there was no gospel access, they become the sustained “insider” gospel witness to their own people and gain capacity for carrying the good news to still more peoples lacking access. This focus on the multiplication of networks of churches is central to Alliance Missions.
Sustainable, Reproducible Resource
Serving communities and multiplying church networks are goals that are sustained over time only as people are developed who will creatively continue and multiply these ministries. Alliance Missions teams are committed to developing people who are in line with the gifts and callings God places within them. God delights in seeing people receive the gospel, being transformed by it, living it out in their own contexts, and carrying it beyond to those who still need it. Institutions, organizations, facilities and materials are often outcomes of missionary ministries, but people are the truly sustainable, reproducible resource of God’s ongoing mission.
Our Legacy
For more than a century, the Alliance family has joined together to bring the gospel to the least-reached places of the world. We extend our reach to the most neglected by raising up networks of churches that multiply gospel access. Scripture tells us that “the same power that raised Jesus from the grave is at work within us” (Rom. 8:11). If we believe that, then our lives change—they have to.
When we meet Jesus, our lives are forever changed by His power and presence. As we plant His Word firmly in our hearts, we lean into His truths, and our hearts are shaped by His mission—just look at Acts 1:8 and Matthew 28:19–20. The mission of Jesus, to go and make disciples and to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, becomes our reality when we are walking with Him. The Alliance has long been a deeper life and missions movement—out of our deeper life with Christ, we are sent on mission.
Alliance World Fellowship
AWF unites churches and ministries related to the C&MA by facilitating cooperation amongst its members (churches and organizations) as they work for the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
Alliance World Fellowship
Missiology
Being a deeper life and missions movement means that the deeper we experience all that Jesus has done for us, the more we are empowered to share in His mission of taking this good news to all peoples. Our global family is united in our desire for greater intimacy with Christ. We seek after the deep, abiding presence of God’s Holy Spirit because we long to be more like Jesus and experience His healing, transformative work in our lives and share it with others. As a Christ-centered, Acts 1:8 family, we come together around this truth and this experience and share together in this mission.Distinctives of Alliance Missiology
Deeper Life and Missions in Our Christ-Centered Acts 1:8 FamilyAll of Jesus for All the World
The task of taking All of Jesus to All the World is the reason God breathed The Alliance into existence. This is why we send workers. This is why we plant churches. This is why we extend the love, care, and compassion of Jesus to the world’s suffering, marginalized, and underserved. It’s also why we go to the last, remaining hard places instead of locations more hospitable to gospel messengers.The Great Commission
In the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19–20), Jesus commissions us to go into all the world, making disciples from all peoples. He promises, “I will be with you always.” It is the joy and empowerment of Christ within us that enables us to give our “yes” to Jesus’ invitation to join Him on mission.
Did you know? The original Greek words here for “all nations” or “all peoples” are panta ta ethne. This phrase can be translated as “all the peoples.” It uses a word that is at the root of our English words “ethnic” and “ethnicity.” The force of the phrase is that no matter what distinctions divide humans into groups, God desires us to make disciples among all the groups.
The Joy of Access
Being a deeper life and missions movement means we are learning that Jesus’ Great Commission is not a burdensome delegation of duty to us. Rather, joy overflows from a passion to carry His message of grace, hope, mercy, and love to parts of our country and areas of our world with little or no gospel access. We are not told to go do something for God; we are invited to joyfully join in the flow of what He’s doing. His purpose is that receivers of gospel access become givers of gospel access. Gospel access is to flow for and from all peoples!The Networked Church
The Church of Jesus Christ has “missionary DNA.” It is the full Body of Christ that is commissioned to engage in God’s mission. Mission is not an activity for a few believers, but it is the activity of God that calls the whole Church to participate. When each local expression of the church is filled with believers full of joy and deep experience of Jesus, they can act as a body to reach beyond themselves and their own people. When such churches join together with one another, they amount to the mobilized force God intends to use to fulfill His mission of all peoples of earth gaining gospel access.
This is a picture of how we join together in the U.S. Alliance, and it’s the reason Alliance Missions is committed to seeing the process repeat itself in each place new peoples receive the gospel. As new peoples receive the good news, their own churches—in turn full of this missionary spirit and networked together—can continue to share the gospel, overcoming distances and differences, so that all peoples can hear.
Sending and Going, Being Present
So, what does this kind of missionary work look like? How does it really happen that new people groups gain a chance to hear the gospel? Jesus put emphasis on the presence of people transformed by the gospel. Simply put, if there are no such transformed people among a group, that group needs someone to come from outside their group into their group. This is precisely what God sent Jesus to do in what we celebrate each Christmas as the Incarnation (John 1:14). Jesus sends us in this same way (John 20:21).
Did you know? During the late 1800s, our Alliance family sent 180 workers—two-thirds of them women—and opened 12 new foreign fields. This is the result of Alliance people united in their devotion to prayer, sacrificial giving, and a pioneering passion to “go.”
Alliance Advanced Outlook
A testimony for all peoples—then the end will come
Unreached People Groups remain unreached because they are hard to reach.
This view of Great Commission completion, while not new, remains critical. Despite the exciting work of God through diaspora movements and the emergence of the global church on mission, we cannot afford to neglect the truth that major ethnolinguistic groups of people are not moving from their traditional geographic homes. The Alliance must remain focused on this reality as it pertains to the sending of U.S. workers and partnerships.
Overlooked Pockets are the least of these in the mission of God.
The Alliance family must recognize barriers to gospel access that are not about geography and ethnicity. Various subcultural groups, most present in all cultures including our own, do not experience credible access to the gospel despite proximity to churches—the communities of people with disabilities, the chronically poor, the LGBTQ+ community, vulnerable children (especially girls), people of diaspora, and emerging generations “immunized” against the church. We must avoid the common mistake of replacing global mission with limited and local vision. We really need to recognize that the dimensions of our calling everywhere should be more evidently shaped by compassion for non-dominant subcultures and the degree to which they are often overlooked and underserved.
Multiplying Forces for Globalized Mission involves multicultural and international partnering.
An important opportunity in our day is to recognize the additional forces God is raising up for His mission. He may move people in ways that exceed our accustomed paradigms. Alliance Missions will continue the journey of seeking to mobilize culturally and ethnically diverse IWs from our U.S. Alliance.
A Testimony to All Peoples
Matthew 24:14 reminds us that when the gospel is preached in the whole world as a testimony to all peoples (panta ta ethne), then the end will come. We continue to have the opportunity to be in step with God’s big mission in this world, joining hands with more and more of His people around the world to see all have gospel access. We do so with the joyful expectation of Jesus’ return for His people from every nation, tribe, people, and language (Rev. 7:9)!
Funding Alliance Missions
Alliance Missions is funded primarily through generous tax-deductible donations given by individuals, churches, foundations, ministries, and other like-minded organizations. Alliance people can financially support Alliance Missions as a whole or give specifically to the work or worker they love.
Dig Deeper
Featured resources, facts, quotes, videos, stories, and more.
Module 6: Alliance 101 Guide and Reflection Questions
This resource is designed for you—either as an individual or a group—to dig deeper, to lean into what God is saying, and to challenge you in your walk with Christ.
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